For example, the government overturned the common law precedent that polluters could be sued by the owners of property which they destroyed. The government also declares that forests are “public property,” which leads to extinctions because nobody owns the forest and the animals within and therefore nobody values the animals and trees within the forest enough to take proper care of them (if somebody owns a forest, they aren’t going to permit all the animals to be killed and the forest to be chopped down because that will cause them long-term economic loss).

Why does the government engage in these ridiculous policies that violate property rights in order to subsidize pollution? Why do the Greens call for more government intervention when government interventions themselves are doing massive harm to the environment? Shouldn’t the government just respect property rights and therefore permit property owners to keep pollution off of their property or to conserve land?